. dropping from sight . . . rising again and
creeping slowly, slowly onward. . . .

Hatless and coatless Boreland and Harlan were standing in the bottom of
the boat shoving on the oars with every ounce of their strength. Twice
she saw the younger man take the oars alone while her husband bailed.
Kayak Bill, rigid, watchful, sat in the stern his hand on the tiller,
ready with the instinct that comes of long experience for every motion
of the sea.

Inch by inch they battled their way around the point in the face of
flying spray and driving rain. Behind them, like a live thing tugging
on the rope the raft rose and fell on the combs of the dark swells.
Pathetic and tear-compelling was the courage of these three men pitting
their puny strength against the pitiless violence of the elements.
Once the little boat seemed to stand still a long time, swashing up and
down in the hollows of the waves, while over it the chop of the sea
splashed in spiteful fury. . . . At last it advanced again slowly and
Kayak swung broadside, turning in towards the beach on which the
anxious woman stood.

A gust of wind caught viciously at the tarpaulin spread over provisions
in the stern. It carried its fluttering blackness straight back into
the white and green of a giant comber directly behind. The onrushing
breaker reared its cruel head . . . then just as another rain-squall
broke, hiding it from view, it curled down swift, terrifying, and the
whale-boat disappeared in its foaming maw. . . .

With a cry of despair Ellen rushed to the very edge of the surf,
straining her eyes over the wild sea. Had the force of the breaker
swept everyone from the whale-boat? Had the canvas stretched tightly
over the provisions been sufficient to keep the water from filling and
swamping the boat? Would the violence of the tide and wind bring them
in if--if--Kayak Bill had not been torn from his post? Suddenly she
knew that on Kayak depended everything: Kayak Bill who had once been a
pilot at surf-bound Yakataga; Kayak Bill who had run the raging bars of
the delta-mouthed Copper River. Would he be equal to the surf of Kon
Klayu? Could he keep his hold on the tiller? . . . Oh, if the
rain-curtain would only lift! If she could but see out there in that
foaming, roaring swelter of water!

She dashed a hand across her face tearing aside the wet hair that
flattened itself against her eyes. . . . The squall was letting
up. . . . She could see now, bu